


Grant Ward Gets A Lot Of Visitors

by TheoMiller



Series: something bigger [8]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, BAMF Jemma Simmons, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Multi, So does everyone else, author hates grant ward, fuck hydra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2093847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 Times Ward Got A Visitor +1 Time He Visited The Outside World. Or, people try to make sense of Ward's betrayal, Loki and Skye quote Natasha, and Ward still thinks he did the right thing. Also, Bruce Banner is a damsel in distress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grant Ward Gets A Lot Of Visitors

**Author's Note:**

> If you like Grant Ward, don't read. Also, Simmons is having a bit of a crisis right now, that'll be explained in later fics, as well as the plot around the last scene.

  1. **Jemma Simmons + Natasha Romanoff**



The door to Ward's cell slid open and he saw a woman's shape stalking towards him before he saw her face, and hoped for a moment it was Skye. It wasn't. He still got punched in the face. "Hi, Jemma," he said tiredly.

"Don't say my name. You don't GET to say my name, you absolutely horrendous monster. Fitz almost died to save me. He—he said—he _trusted_ you! Even when the rest of us had given up on you, he trusted you, and you dumped him into the ocean to die."

"You shouldn't have come after Garrett."

Jemma ignored him. "Natasha says if I still want to kill you in a year – nine months now – I'm developing a poison. A slow-acting poison that will leave you in agonizing pain for years while it destroys your organs. And I'm going to record the results and leave it as a warning to anyone who even THINKS about laying a finger on Fitz. Or Coulson. Or Skye. Or May. Or Tripp. And you know what the worst part is?" She kicked him again, harder this time, as tears streamed down her face and her usually kind expression twisted in bitter anger. "I would've done it for you, Ward."

"Steady, there, steady," an all too familiar voice said, the dim light of the cell catching on flame red hair as the other woman - Ward hadn't even seen her come in - draped an arm around Jemma and pulled her away with uncharacteristic gentleness.

Simmons was still sobbing. "I would've done it for you," she said, and ran out of the cell with her breath hitching.

"Didn't expect to see you here," Ward said. "Why visit me?"

Natasha Romanoff sank into a crouch in front of his cot so she could be at eye level with him. "I thought you might need some eye candy."

He squeezed his eyes shut. He'd hoped that wouldn't have reached her ears - or that, if it had, it would be too late for one or both of them to do anything about it. "You came all the way here because I made a snide comment?"

"Actually, it was sort of a mixture of the misogyny and the fact that you shot Lola," said the Black Widow. "I helped restore that car, after Budapest. You crossed one hell of a line. The Director is a little busy, so I figured I'd come down here with Doc Simmons. Nice kid. Classic Coulson material, as recruits go."

"Where's his other recruit? Still batty after killing all his coworkers before it was cool?"

"Clint? He's a little tied up right now."

"Bet he likes that," Ward said.

Natasha shrugged. "I don't kiss and tell. And neither does the Director. But I'll bet you do. I was thinking of setting Skye up with Tony, what do you think? Skye might even still have her Ironette cosplay."

He bared his teeth, and Romanoff leaned back with an almost pitying look. "You're a good kid, Ward. One count of arson against a family who probably deserved worse, that's a record clearer than most SHIELD recruits. I wonder if maybe, had Garrett not been your handler, you might've been one of our best."

"I was one of the best," he snarled.

She was definitely looking at him with pity now, and it made his blood boil. "You got taken down by Melinda May. Which, granted, happens to the best of us. But this is a May who was bone weary and blinded by emotion. You got tricked by a rookie. The Psychic and all his connections, taken down by one rogue team. With Fitz asleep, Fury hiding, Simmons watching over her fallen teammate, and Skye and May's hearts breaking, they took you all down. Triplett had nothing but a box of museum pieces that are almost as old as Coulson. Skye had an empty backpack. So tell me, how is it that you're one of our best? Because a ragtag bunch of misfits led by a man old enough to be your grandfather took you down. And he's only our fourth best." She rested her wrists on her knees, looking up at him from under long lashes.

"Yeah? And who's the best?"

She arched her eyebrows. "Do you really need to learn rule one of SHIELD again?"

He'd been inducted into the SHIELD academy not long after she'd joined, bypassing the Academy entirely. "Follow the chain of command," he said.

"No, no, don’t give me that, Ward. Maybe Garrett tried to train it out of you, pandered to your ego while he groomed you into a Hitler Youth, but every SHIELD agent knows the rule. What’s the rule, Ward?” She was standing now, towering over him, and held his face still with her slender fingers.

“Rule one,” he gritted out, remembering the face of the agent who’d first told him it, “anything you can do, Natasha Romanoff can do better than you.”

Romanoff released his chin. “Even be a better person.” She nodded her head to the side, “Which, admittedly, I’m just as surprised about.”

“Really? Did I beat your kill list?” Ward rasped out.

“No,” she said. “But I’ve taken every chance I had at redemption, and you’ve squandered yours.”

Before he could reply, she raised her fingers to her earpiece. “Sorry, I’m gonna have to cut this short. You’d better hope Simmons decides on being a squeaky clean person, by the way, because otherwise, I’ll bring her back here, and she’ll kill you. Oh, and, Ward?”

“What?” he asked warily.

The punch to the face was sort of anticlimactic. “That’s for Lola,” she said, and stalked out. A moment later, the cell was plunged into total darkness, and her voice floated over to him, “and this is for the eye-candy comment.”

His cell door was slammed shut.

  1. **Clint Barton + Bucky Barnes**



Ward came back from his exercise time, which consisted mainly of him shuffling in circles under artificial sunlight, someone was perched in the corner, toying with an arrowhead. The guard didn’t even glance twice at him as she shackled Ward back to the bed. “I was wondering when you’d come,” he said.

“Sorta busy with my boyfriend,” shrugged Hawkeye, and stepped into the dim light. He peered up at the bulb. “You can thank Bruce for the fact that you’re not rotting in total darkness right now, by the way. He’s a bit more merciful than the rest of us.”

“I’m surprised St Rogers allowed it,” Ward sneered back.

“Oh, Steve hates your guts. He lost everything fighting Hydra, and damn well near lost it all again. Plus, y’know, he and Phil are tight now.”

Ward groaned and tilted his head back. “Can you skip the small talk and beat me up already?”

“Not here to beat you up,” Barton said. “From what I hear, Jemma’s got dibs. Nope, just here to ask you a question.”

“Uh-huh,” said Ward dubiously.

“Honest curiosity,” said Barton, “how did it seem like a good idea to betray Phil Coulson? I mean, jeez, he’s – he’s not perfect, but he’s pretty forgiving. All you had to do was fess up when the time came. But you didn’t. Why?”

“Because I was loyal to John Garrett,” Ward said.

Hawkeye frowned. “Has Garrett been a better authority figure to you than Coulson? Because Tripp says Coulson’s a damned sight better than Garrett.”

“Garrett saved me. I owe him everything.”

“Do you know who taught me to shoot, Ward?” the archer asked, and held up the arrowhead. “I had this mentor, see, at the circus. He taught me to shoot, and told me we were going to be heroes. He took me into the city to kill bad guys, told me how I was gonna be just like Captain America. Turns out I was killing good guys. You know what I did when I found out?”

“What,” Ward gritted out.

Barton tossed the arrowhead up and caught it again. “I put an arrow in his head. So don’t tell me you didn’t have a choice. We always have a choice.”

“Did you sleep with that mentor too, or is it just Coulson?”

“Okay, dude? The creepy sexual comments have got to stop, I read May’s report, that is just. No. It doesn’t add to your villainous swagger, it just makes you creepy and gross. Just a tip.”

“BARTON!” someone called from the hallway. “You said five minutes!”

“Calm your tits, Barnes,” Barton said, just barely above normal volume.

The door opened, and Ward’s blood ran ice cold. “No,” he said. “Barton, don’t let him near me, don’t!”

The Winter Soldier blinked at him. Then, in a pure Brooklyn accent, “I know this asshole.”

“Well, yeah, we have, like, weekly bitchfests about this guy,” Barton said. He was chatting casually with the Winter Soldier, the legendary assassin, the man from the lab. Barton’s lack of self-preservation instinct was legendary, but that seemed excessive, even for a guy who used an archaic weapon and refused to wear a bulletproof helmet.

“No,” said the Soldier, “I mean that he was there. During one of my wipes, he was in the room, with another man. The Clairvoyant, they called him.”

Barton turned a considering gaze on Ward. “You saw a guy being tortured and mind-controlled by Neo-Nazis, and you were still like ‘yeah, okay, this is the organization I wanna throw my weight behind’? That’s cold, Ward. Too cold. Ice cold. _Wintry_ cold, real—ow!” he said, when the Soldier punched his arm _hard_.

“If you ever try to escape and rejoin Hydra,” the Soldier said to Ward, his voice suddenly flat and eyes harsh, “I will find you myself.”

Ward swallowed, and the Soldier turned to Barton. “Time to go.”

  1. **Loki**



Ward was pretty sure he was alone. And then he was a hundred percent sure he wasn't. "You're supposed to be imprisoned on Asgard," Ward said.

Loki chuckles and conjures up a chair. "I made a bargain."

"And kept it?" said Ward. "That hardly sounds like you."

"Thor got to remember me as I once was, his loving brother and comrade in arms. I got the throne of Asgard, and no one is the wiser."

"Does the big bad alien miss his brother?"

"Thor is useless," said Loki, and it didn't take Romanoff to know that Loki was lying through his teeth. "I have greater need of his tiny human lover."

"Why are you here, Loki?"

"I owe amends to the Son of Coul."

"For killing him, you mean?” Ward asked. “Good luck with that."

"Oh, and I suppose your actions are more virtuous?"

"I never touched Coulson," Ward said, and it was like someone had flipped a switch on the amused, polite veneer. Loki’s face twisted in a snarl, and he stalked closer to Ward with a downright predatory glint to his eyes.

"How long did you lie in wait, subverting and insinuating, knowing these people with whom you surrounded yourself, who revealed their truest selves to you, would fall at your hands?” Loki hissed. “What tender touches did you share, what moments of triumph and laughter, what grand battles did you fight alongside these people, all the while knowing that you were concealing some awful truth?

“How earnestly did you perpetuate this utter falsehood, this lie, that you six were family?” And Ward didn’t flinch, he was too good, but it was a close thing. Not my family, he wanted to snap back, I have no family, Garrett is dead. “What fatherly wisdom did Coulson bestow upon you, what trust did the kindly scientists lay upon your shoulders, what respect did the would-be monster offer you, what esteem did the lady warrior deem you worthy of? And you threw it away."

"Garrett," said Ward. "Garrett was my family."

"Garrett used you! Garrett manipulated you and promised you power he never delivered! Garrett was a liar and a coward who cared for none but himself and his pet project!" Loki’s voice rose to almost a scream at this, and Ward snorted.

"What the hell would you know about family?"

Loki lashed out with some sort of magic that knocked the breath out of Ward. "I was abandoned by my blood, used by the man who taunted me with an impossible throne, usurped by the brother who outshone me, and now my hands are soaked with the blood of my mother.

“Oh, but you, you still live in a dream. Dreams of the beautiful creature you love becoming as twisted and monstrous as you. But she still believes in a better world.”

"Don't you fucking mention Skye," snarled Ward.

"You wished to create a monster from a girl. You succeeded. The kindly one, the student of plants and potions and life, she is the one you have set with a core of steel. The fair Widow has taken the scientist under her wing, and teaches the girl to use her vulnerability as a weapon.

“And your Skye? She is under the protection of my brother. All disgusting nobility and honour. The Falcon and the good Captain, they too have taken a liking to her. Your would-be corruption has no hold over her in present company. She is better without you. They all are. And you rot here."

“They forced my hand, I never wanted to hurt them, if they’d just stayed out of my way,” Ward said.

Loki smirked at him. “You can only use the excuse that we are what our circumstances made us so often. Then you have to be more than what your circumstances made you.”

And then Ward was alone.

  1. **Phil Coulson**



“The good director himself,” Ward said, when Coulson quietly closed the door behind him.

He ignored the assessing gaze Coulson leveled at him, even though it made him want to strangle someone. It was like being back in front of an angry principal, except this one might actually kill him.

“I didn’t know Natasha deprived you of light,” said Coulson. “That was inhumane, and it won’t happen again. Nor will Simmons be administering a slow-acting poison to you, although that’s almost entirely for her sake. She’s never hated anyone before, it can make us do things we normally wouldn’t.”

“Like trust the Winter Soldier?”

Coulson shrugged. “I’ve trusted worse people. Besides, he’s been personally vouched for by Captain America.”

“Since when does he know you’re not dead?”

“Since Natasha told him,” Coulson said. “But I’m not here to discuss the Winter Soldier.”

“What are you here for, then?” Ward asked.

Coulson just _looked_ at him. Then, “Closure? I just—is there anything, anything at all, that I could’ve done differently? If I’d spoken to you more, if I’d asked less of you, was there ever anything I could’ve done to keep this from happening?” He sounded vaguely pleading.

“Yeah,” said Ward. “You could’ve put a bullet in my head.”

Ward watched Coulson’s face carefully for signs of lying as the man said, “You know, I don’t think I could do that even now.” There were none.

“You’re weak,” Ward told him.

“Maybe,” agreed Coulson. “But I have an agency to rebuild, and it’s Avengers-SHIELD joint movie night. I’m making the popcorn,” he added, and then he was gone.

  1. **Skye**



“Sam said it’d help to have closure,” Skye said, breaking the silence that had built up to titanic proportions after she’d entered the cell.

Ward’s stomach lurched. “Is Sam your boyfriend now?”

“Oh, hell no, you don’t get to be jealous of people I choose to date,” she snapped. “You lost that right when you stabbed us in the back, you creepy bastard.”

“But you are dating him?”

She narrowed her eyes. “No,” said Skye, “he’s dating Tripp.”

His eyes slid shut with relief, only to snap open when she continued, “Yeah, Darcy and I go on double dates with them.”

“Darcy?” Ward said. “You’re dating a guy named Darcy?”

“Girl,” Skye replied calmly.

He felt a surge of hope, because there was no way that was anything but a lie. “Uh-huh,” he said. “You and your girlfriend go on double dates with Falcon and Agent Triplett. Thought Romanoff would be teaching you to lie better by now.”

“Oh, for—” she broke off and fished out her cell phone, which she definitely wasn’t allowed to have in this place, but it was Skye, she had a disregard for the rules that bordered on pathological. “Hang on,” she said. She flicked her fingers across the screen, and he craned his neck to look.

“Is that Pepper Potts?” he said, disbelievingly, and she paused to hold up the phone. And, yep, that was Pepper Potts looking at a StarkTablet while Sif dozed against her shoulder.

“Jemma… San Fran… Clint… Here we go,” she said.

The image was obviously a selfie: it showed a small diner in a faintly blurry background, and a dark-haired woman with an impressive rack with her arm slung around Skye’s shoulders. The girl – Darcy – was grinning wickedly at the camera, and Skye was smiling in the soft, genuine sort of way she used to smile around him. Damn it. He’d hoped that she’d be just as miserable out there without him as he was in here without her.

She flipped through a few photos of two black men (who had to be Triplett and Wilson, though he couldn’t see at that speed), before settling on a picture of Skye and Darcy beside Triplett and Wilson, all of them beaming at the camera. “Director Coulson took that for us before we went out,” she said smugly.

“But… you’re straight,” Ward protested.

Skye rolled her eyes and yanked down her pants, just a bit, to show a pink, purple, and blue heart on her hipbone. “Yeah, that’s why I got a bi-pride tatt years before I met you.”

He stared at the strip of skin she’d exposed, and she yanked her pants back up with a glare.

“Does _Darcy_ know you’re visiting me?”

“She drove,” Skye said. “She’s getting us ice cream. The mess hall is great here, it’s got a Dairy Queen.”

Ward closed his eyes again. “I miss you,” he said raggedly.

“No,” said Skye. “You miss the person you thought you could make me. And I miss the person I thought you were.” She sounded so certain. He thought about the venom in her voice at that diner where she’d called the cops, and the smirk when she’d set May loose on him, and the way she looked at him after she almost watched him die, like she hated him for making her care.

“We could still do it, you know,” Ward said. “If you broke me out of here, we could run. Find your real parents, the not-human ones. And we could be together.”

“After everything you did, why would I even _want_ to?”

“Because I love you,” said Ward, and Skye laughed humorlessly.

Her footsteps withdrew. “No,” she told him. “You really don’t.”

He opened his eyes in time to see the door slam shut behind her.

**+1 Time Ward Visited the Outside World**

Ward expected a lot of things, on his first trip beyond his cell in nearly two years. Captain America in the middle of an abandoned warehouse was not one of them.

“So you’re Ward,” he said. “I’d introduce myself, but that seems a little… redundant.”

The Winter Soldier was pacing behind Rogers, Iron Man was manning one exit with a man in gear and what appeared to be a _jet pack_ , Romanoff— _Black Widow_ —and Thor were by the other, Hawkeye wasn’t visible but almost certainly present, and… “You appear to be short a teammate.”

“Can I shoot him?” Hawkeye yelled.

Rogers held up a hand to stay him, but his gaze didn’t leave Ward’s face. “I’m not sure if you know this, but the Avengers as a whole consider SHIELD as it now stands to be a sort of extended family. Skye Coulson is—”

“ _What_?” Ward demanded, mind already doing the math on the age gap, the time since he’d seen Skye and heard about Darcy, reanalyzing all of Coulson’s interactions with Skye, before he realized the Winter Soldier was laughing at him.

“Coulson adopted Skye a few months ago,” said Rogers. Then, “As I was saying, Skye Coulson is running the active op. Buck, can you pull up the video chat?”

The Soldier ( _Buck?!_ ) lifted the tablet in his hands. There was a pause where Skye continued to tap at the keyboard in front of her, and then she looked up into the webcam and directly at Ward. “That was fast,” she said. “I trust transport was not a problem?”

“He slept like a babe,” said Thor in a rumbling voice that carried across the fifteen-odd meters.

Skye nodded, eyes flicking over the screen now. “We have sixteen active Hydra locations right now. We’re sending reconnaissance to all of them.”

“Standard reconnaissance is two people,” Ward replied. “Unless you’re doing a rush job on the applications, there’s no way you have many more than thirty-two field agents. You can’t do a rescue mission with any speed unless you know where they’re holding Banner.”

“Gold star,” said Skye. “Boys, fill him in, I have to disable this five-layer security system real quick,” she added, and returned to the out-of-sight keyboard.

The Winter Soldier cleared his throat. “Steve, you got this if I run a perimeter check?”

“Don’t take any unnecessary risks,” Steve said over his shoulder, voice concerned.

Ward watched them, the way their hands lingered when the assassin passed the tablet over, the way the Soldier brushed past Rogers on his way over to Thor and Natasha (the nickname, the pacing), and things started to click. “Hey Romanoff,” he called, tilting his head back. “Did you sleep with Rogers too? Is that what makes a killer a saint?”

“Don’t be disrespectful,” snapped Steve. “Now, are you willing to listen to us, or would you like to go back to your cell?”

“Good luck finding another Hydra agent left alive that you’ve leverage over,” Ward shrugged.

Skye cleared her throat, and Captain America flipped the tablet around to face him. God, she was pretty when she was smug. “One wonders where Coulson is, during all this, if not pursuing other lines of inquiry,” she said.

“The thing is, Ward, you’re only here because you’re our very favorite traitorous scumbag,” Hawkeye said from directly above him.

“Yeah, Loki stopped being a traitorous scumbag, so we got stuck with you,” agreed a new voice, and Darcy poked her head into view behind Skye. “Hi!”

“I have a demand,” he said, eyeing Darcy coldly. She waggled her fingers at him in a wave.

Rogers nodded. “We expected as much. In return, you have to tell us which of the Hydra bases are capable of holding the Hulk. We will crosscheck those with the sixteen active bases, narrow things down quite a bit, and when Bruce Banner is returned safely to us, then – and only then – will you get your demand fulfilled.”

“There’s only one base that could hold the Hulk,” said Ward. “But I really don’t trust you’ll meet my demand when you have what I want.”

“Hang on, lemme just access my clairvoyant powers,” Skye said bitterly, the same harsh voice she’d used in the diner in California. It took him a moment to realize the words echoed in an impossible way.

Given that he was _not_ tied to a chair, or restrained at all (probably because eight people more than capable of killing him in under ten seconds were in the room with him), he could turn around freely to look at Skye, who lowered the tablet she was holding. Darcy took it from her and folded the keyboard up and around to cover it.

“Oh, yeah, definitely getting a vision,” Skye continued. “You want me.”

Ward took a half-step forward and stopped when an arrow planted itself in the concrete in front of him. “Always,” he said.

“Ten minutes alone with Skye,” said Darcy. “Just give us the information, and we’ll leave. Time to play deal or no deal.”

Skye’s face broke into a helpless laugh. “ _Darce_ , no,” she said.

“Darcy, _yes_ ,” said Darcy.

Ward ignored her. “It’s the one in Alaska. They pumped the oil out of the ground and filled the space with a cage not unlike the one SHIELD built for him, except twice the reinforcements and vacuum capabilities. If he becomes more problem than asset, they can remove all the oxygen from there in minutes.”

“Ten minutes starting the moment that door closes behind me,” said Rogers.

Ward waited patiently.

Captain America had to drag Hawkeye out, the archer making threats all the way, and Skye folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. “Nine minutes, fifty four seconds,” she said.

“You look good,” Grant told her. She did – she was wearing SHIELD gear, navy blue instead of black, and it hugged her figure well. “The blue suits you.”

“I know,” she said. She had her face composed and set stony like Romanoff did, replied only with the minimum, didn’t react to anything. All of it designed to keep him from getting anything resembling an actual conversation out of her.

He let his face crumple, taking a real step towards her. “Skye,” he said. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, and I’m sorry. I never wanted you to be in any danger. Please don’t shut me out.”

“Don’t come near me,” she snapped, and he stopped.

That tone was a familiar tone. “May’s been training you.”

“Yeah, my last SO turned out to be a real SOB, so she took over for a while.”

“Skye,” Grant said, voice rough. He took another step, slow and steady. “I can’t live with the idea of you hating me.”

She swallowed and stared up at him. “Yeah?”

“I don’t care about the confinement…” he moved in closer, “or the mind-numbing boredom…” he lifted his hands, just a little, “or even Romanoff using sensory deprivation,” her arms dropped to her sides as she scanned his face with a desperate look, “All I think about, all I care about, what _consumes_ me is that you’re out here. Without me. Hating me.”

Grant let his hands settle on Skye’s hips. “I love you,” he said.

“You do?” Skye said, in the voice she used when she was upset and didn’t want anyone to know.

He plucked the gun hidden behind her back free of its holster and tossed it away. When she turned her head to look for it, he reached up and caught her chin to hold her there. “Can you look me in the eyes and tell me honestly that you don’t love me too?”

Skye was soft in his arms, the harsh stance relaxing as she leaned in. “I…” she said.

“Can you?” he repeated.

“Oh, Grant,” said Skye, and the way she said it, like she was quoting something, set off every alarm bell he had. “If only there were someone out there who loved you.”

His hands tightened, jaw clenching and vision narrowing, and then Skye grabbed his wrist and twisted and at least one bone, likely two, snapped. Ward used the hand on her hip to shove her away, and she let herself fall, rolled to recover, and landed in a crouch.

“I don’t want to fight you,” he said, clutching his injured wrist to his chest. “All I want, all I’ve wanted since we met, is to be with you!”

“Yeah? Tell me, Ward, if you love me so much, riddle me this. Why does Fitz still attend rehabilitation, why does Simmons come to training with me, why does Coulson terrify new recruits with a lie detector, why does May go still whenever you’re mentioned, why can’t I look at you without feeling sick, why are you Hydra? Why are you STILL Hydra even NOW, _why is Bruce Banner in_ Australia _when you said_ Alaska?”

Ward dropped his hands to his side and cocked his head to the side. “I’m never going to be happy with just ten minutes,” he said. “I knew they’d leave half the Avengers here to keep you safe. When they realize they were wrong, there’s no way the team in Alaska will be able to get to Australia in time, so they’ll send the ones here to Australia, which should give me… Half an hour, give or take, to escape with you.”

“Tiny problem with that plan,” Skye said. She rose out of her crouch and edged towards where he’d thrown he gun. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, but if you make me, I will,” he warned.

“Kinda do wanna hurt you, so if you touch me, I will.”

Ward sighed and readied himself for a fight, and then cold metal closed on the back of his neck and dragged him back against a harsh line of body armor. A serrated blade pricked at his throat.

“What’d I tell you?” The Winter Soldier asked. “I told you that if you tried to run back to Hydra, I’d find you.” There wasn’t a trace of Brooklyn to that voice now, and it occurred to Ward a bit too late that maybe there were two Avengers you really oughtn’t get angry.

Darcy strolled in, hands in her hoodie pockets. “Remember I mentioned Loki? Yeah, turns out he can tell when you’re full of shit.”

Skye relaxed her stance and went straight to her, tucking her head into Darcy’s shoulder and just standing there for a moment. Ward had never wanted anyone dead quite so much as he wanted Darcy dead. Preferably painful, but not too slow, because that gave too much room to save her. He wondered idly how Skye would react if he tricked _her_ into killing Darcy, if that might push her over the edge and make her as broken as him.

“So the other seven Avengers are on their merry way to Australia, along with Phil, Melinda, Tripp, and FitzSimmons,” the Soldier said, the coldness leaking away from his voice. He almost sounded human.

“Just one former Hydra weapon, a civilian, and a junior agent?” asked Ward. “Wow, that doesn’t seem very smart.”

“Jane and Loki are babysitting for another ‘former Hydra weapon’. Congratulations, Grant Ward, you got my buddy Mike Peterson out of retirement for a few hours.”

The Soldier let Ward go. He didn’t move. He stayed right where he was, wrist throbbing and swelling, while Skye and Darcy played checkers on the tablet and the Soldier snarked into his earpiece, until Iron Man manhandled him into a secure transport vehicle with an icepack and the grudging admission that Coulson would make sure he got proper medical attention once he got back to his cell.

Skye was the last thing he saw as the transport doors closed (Deathlok hovered in the distance), and she folded her arms behind her back and gave a smug grin as she said, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking mild liberties on Hawkeye's back-story, it looks like there's been a retcon since the "Hawkeye had a shitty mentor" storyline I'm familiar with, and I have a deep and abiding love for Hawkeye angst (go read "hollow your bones like a bird" by scifigrl47 AKA my life). So, yeah.


End file.
